I got it fixed by taking your advise, making morphs from the basemesh.
The problem area that is, not the whole morph.
It would be cool if some one could create Poser magnets for the morphs tho. :D

Strange - I'm getting the "tag value does not match base" when importing face morphs straight from Fullbuild0. When I get time I'll try to analyze exactly what's off about those morphs.

I asked for that, and got turned down. The issue with even trying that in a plug-in is that you don't have access to mouse-clicks and screen refresh and all of the things that would allow the user to click and drag and see changes realtime. All that stuff needs to be in the core of MilkShape.

There is probably a way I can make some of this easier by computing new morph positions from the original morphs, but I need to think about how to do that and make it understandable by average users.

I have to apologize here....
I redid the whole procedure again for the lod2 mesh and its morphs.
This time the uvmaps of the morphs got updated with the edits i made on the basemesh uvmap.
So i must have done something wrong earlier.....

It is not a problem, sir. The discussion has given me a new idea. While I ought to keep my trap shut, because I am loaded with projects, I envisioned another plug-in to reshape morphs.
Here is the essence of it:

You would load a base mesh and your morphs. Then you would duplicate the base mesh group and give it a special name as a reference mesh (really, just something that will be unique and standard).

You would proceed to edit the base group, making sure not to add or delete faces/vertices. Then this plug-in could be run and it would use the original mesh copy (with special name) and each morph to obtain the original morph deltas, and then apply the delta to the edited base mesh (always the first group).

The simplest example I can describe would be using the old "spike" trick (moving one vertex). Picture loading your mesh and the fat morph. On the belly of the fat morph the vertices are moved toward the front to make it fat. Now, imagine making and renaming a reference copy of the base mesh (like I talked about) and then selecting one belly vertex on the base (not your reference) and pulling it to teh front even more to form a spike.

Currently, if you exported at this point the base mesh would have a spike, and the fat morph wouldn't. This plug-in would be able to take the special named reference mesh, determine the difference between the original mesh vertex position and the morph vertex position (the delta), and then add that delta to the new (edited) mesh position and adjust the morph to that position. This would make the fat morph have a spike, too, and that spike would be further out by the same amount of distance that the original fat morph was from the original base.

I think the plug-in would have to copy the edited base mesh as teh last step to the reference mesh in order for a repeated use to work without breaking the morphs (essentially, without that it would double the offsets if applied a second time without adjusting the reference copy).

I think this would help the morph creation process a lot, if only for meshes where vertices were only moved. If I did this, I would need some testers, because it would take me a while to create some test projects and work through them.

That would be sweet!!
But just take your time, altho i like to test new things im just about to finish/release my first custom outfit with new moprhs/Bgeo's etc wich took me a alot of my presious time compared to sims 2 meshing.
I like to make a few more till i get the hang of it...
And be honest, i haven't seen that many creators releasing custom outfits with new made morphs....

Well, I am planning to take some time off over the holidays, and what I was going to start today was delayed because Amazon is slammed with orders, so I got Igor and went to the secret lab and cooked this new monster up.

Sometimes, there are few people doing something because it is too hard and there is no leadership. A tool that makes things easier may entice more meshers to make good morphs for their creations.

As I tried to describe before, this is pretty simple. You load your base (as the first group) and then load all of the associated morphs that you want to use. Then you select and duplicate the base group, and rename the new duplicate "reference". Save a backup, and then edit your base mesh (only moving vertices), and run this plugin, Morph Mangle (it will be in the Vertex menu). The morphs will have your base mesh changes added to them, and the reference mesh will become a copy of the updated base so future changes can be added in.

I don't have the kind of program access you would need to make this live with every edit, but you should be able to run it as frequently as you want. For now, there is an instructional dialog that will pop up every time that could get annoying, and perhaps I will remove it once users understand how to use the tool.

If it works and is useful, I will add it into the Q-Mesh set. If people don't want or can't understand it, well, that is not a problem. In life, I find if you throw enough jello at the wall, some of it will stick.

Plug-in and readme attached.

So do i have to buy a reg code for milkshape? Thats a bit harsh.

I don't sell MilkShape. And I resent your implications the I am "harsh" for working with a program we have used for a half-dozen years, counting Sims 2. Were I a bit coarser, I feel I would respond with a few profane descriptive words, including references to your equestrian abilities and your heritable status.

If you are just a tightwad or want to cry poor, pitiful me, and just want something that is free, why not learn to use Blender and work with the plugins that have been posted for that? They are here http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=355471

Hey Wes,
I am still trying to export a torus ring with the plugins but always get the error
''split the seams first''
Is there a way you can change some settings so i be able to export it?
A torus ring is often created with a 12 stack cilinder with every stack 30degrees rotated. http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,60084.0.html
Cilinders have a unique uvmap wich is prolly given the error.
Splitting the ring in half(and regrouping them back)will fix this but i was just wondering....:D

This is the difference between the object exporter and the GEOM one. In the object exporter, the exporter adds the needed vertices to make the game happy.

The GEOM exporter does not add them, and checks to make sure they aren't there because of issues that arose from morphs no longer matching.

Make a file with just your torus in it as an object mesh, then re-import it. You'll see the vertex count went up, those were added to ensure that no separate locations on the UV map point to a single vertex. The game cannot manage them that way, as it pairs vertices with UV (and normals) in sets.

I always had much trouble trying to use the mapping in MilkShape, so I don't know how to work it. In Maya, it is easy, you can select a vertex and see the UVs associated with it, for the GEOM meshes you can easily split the vertex, which is essentially making one vertex with two UVs into two vertices with one UV each.

That is wat i am going to try, thank you!!

Wes, could you please please help me?
I am trying to make an ageconversion from an TS3 Adult female top for elders.
I now have finished the Lod1, altered the morphs with your magic jello. Thank you, its fantastic!!

But now I have some questions:

-Do I first have to import the elder top and all its morph and than the Milkshape save for every morph separately, and Copy+paste comments delete all but one and export overwrite?

-How to I get the morphs out of Milkshape when they are finished, and How do I get them in the package?
I've made a EFpackage from the AFtop with CTU, and I can load the Lod1-Lod2 and Lod3 meshes in there, but not the morphmeshes.
I have understand a bit that I have to learn how to use the BodyMorphmaker and that several files have to be altered in Postal?

-Where can I find What has to be done, with What, in Which files, and with What program? OhOh, That sounds like Cluedo and I have so little clue's!

I will attach the latest Milkshape file, in case you want to see your tools at work.

Wow. Too many questions in one.

I didn't really understand the question. Are you adding/deleting faces, or just using the AF mesh as a guide?

You are right about the top group and importing morphs. Since a GEOM can only have one group, I simplified my task by just allowing the first group to always be the base mesh, any additional ones will be treated as morphs. Since MilkShape 1.7.9 or so, the up/down buttons make reordering groups simple enough.

But just like in TS2, morphs have to be exact copies of the base, except the positions of the vertices can be altered. Not really a Sims restriction, it is how 3D models work for vertex animation.

Perhaps CMar will see your post and add have some answers on the BodyMorphMaker itself, I will be of little use helping you on that.

Yeah, sorry Wes, actually I have a thousand more questions. I altered the wall of text and left only the questions.

No, I do not add or delete any vertices or faces when making an age conversion. The AFtop will become the EFtop, replacing the EFtop I used as a guide/base.

The thing I am most worried right now, is whether I started the whole process in the right way.
-Should I have imported the EFtop morphs too, before making any alterations?
-What is in the comments that I copy pasted from the EFtop to the AFtop? Maybe I must keep the AFtop comments?

I want to learn how to do this ageconversion and any help is very welcome.

Edit: I finished the 3 lods and loaded them into the CTUpackage and tested in game. Lod2 needs more work and I have to find out how to get the morphmeshes out of Milkshape and in the package.

Edit 2. I will post my other questions in the CASpart forum.

I am still confused a bit. But I think what you need to do is load the source mesh plus all the morphs. I presume you have to match the source top at the waist and at the neck, so you also need the base mesh for your target, to copy the position, UV and VertexID data from. You will be deleting the target before exporting.

The special morph plugin uses the reference mesh as a "before" copy. The whole process is simple math, but I cannot do it realtime, within MilkShape, so the plugin needs to have a copy of the mesh before changes were made, so it can compute the proper offsets to add to the changed mesh for each of the morphs... the math would be new_morph=morph-previous+current. The plugin does that for each vertex of each morph, and then copies the current to the reference (to be used as previous for any subsequent changes). You could do this as often as you want during your mesh work.

I saw in your previous message you understand most of the process already... I think you are perhaps thinking too hard on this. What you need to do is just make an adjusted copy of the source mesh (one that matches the waist and neck) and export it plus its updated morphs, and number the output files to your replacement or new CAS part IDs.

The comments on GEOMs are generally much simpler than TS2 was, although they are more convoluted looking. However, part of the data specifies the TGIs to be used for the textures and bumpmaps, and the joint placements. While the differences are subtle, some variations exist between skeletons for the slots like glasses and other accessories. The rest of the comments are the MTNF data, that is the material. Most of the clothes are all the same, but some accessory items have some transparency. It is possible to copy just the material part or just the TGI parts, however for clothing that is probably not something you need to worry about.

Your right Wes, yes, I was thinking too hard on the export.
The point was, that I didn't know you could start the export with all the meshes+the morph groups present in Milkshape. Because I deleted every group but one before exporting, I never saw that pop-up window untill Base1980 explained it to me.
I also missed the fact that you do not have to overwrite anything, and that renaming after import and at export can save you a lot of puzzling.
Thank you so very much for making all these creator friendly tools!!

I am sorry to post another question here, but this one is really about the tools:
What is the meaning of "default skeleton", and is it still nessecairy to extract the .skon?
In your AviatorGlasses tutorial, you have to extract it with Postal, and failing to have it present, will result in a Milkshape warning "Unable to locate bone file Default skeleton used" when importing the Lod.

I do have more questions about skeletons/joints and the Vertex renumbering, but I will post them in the Caspart forum.

Every GEOM uses its own skeleton ingame and its link(TGIref) is stored in the GEOM itself, it is usually the last TGI reference you see when opening the meshgroup comments.
You could extract that skeleton(.skon) from the gamefiles to load it with the mesh itself as Wes explained in his glasses tutorial but it is not really necesarry.
The GEOM plugin has also a skeleton build in wich loads if the original isn't there.
I never use the original .skon and haven't had any problems yet.

You will want to use the vertex renumbering tool if you are going to add parts(faces) to the GEOMs.
This does also mean you must redo the Bgeo files with BMM as the originals will no longer work.

Wes,
This is probably due the limitations MS has but i recently started to use the merge tools but somehow they are not compatible with the plugin as i lose bonesettings when exporting.
After reimporting im missing all kind of Hash bones.....
Doesn't the ms3d file support bones?

Hey Wes
I hard you once speak of a tool(or option?) to bring a bunch of vertices ''in rest''
Does have MS such a option?
Especially with curvy shapes i spend hours to adjust the verts....

I am not sure what you are asking.. in rest?

I most recently made an auto-adjuster for morphs, I think it is posted in a thread in the CAS parts. It uses a copy of the original base as a 'reference' (a "before changes" copy) and, after adjusting the base mesh, it will revise all of the morphs to be applied to the new base shape instead of the original. At teh end of the process, you have to
remove the reference mesh, but it saves a lot of work (it still requires that only vertices be moved to retain the original morphs).

For curvy stuff, I often use 'scale' to adjust vertices with. By choosing the axis and origin carefully you can do a lot of adjusting and still have curves instead of jaggedy edges.

Oh, i thought you mentioned once there was a tool that would automaticly adjust the verts sticking out a bit.
Were did i read that??

Is Milkshape a meshing tool?

Yes, Miss Meow, Milkshape is a program you can use to make meshes with.
This question should not have been asked, if you toke the time to actually read anything that was written in this thread. Or anything else here in the MESHING forum.

Wes, is there a explanation on how the tag values work within your vertID tool?
Does it also has influance on how the vertice is moved when using the sliders?
I have made a new bodyshape build on 4 of Warlokk's bodyshapes but have serious trouble(a deformed shape) when using the thin and fit slider at the same time.
Have redone it more then 10 times by now....
Thought it only had to do with the textures?

Hi! :D

i cant dowload the plugins!

Download - please read all instructions before downloading any files!
File Type: rar QMeshPlugins.rar (40.1 KB, 6029 downloads)

yuo know way?!